


The Riddle

by rawrkinjd



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, First Kiss, M/M, Mutual Pining, Requited Love, Soft Eskel (The Witcher), Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawrkinjd/pseuds/rawrkinjd
Summary: Prompt:suddenly-a-twilight-blog asked: "Hi! If prompts are still open I present: Some Geskel angst and hurt/comfort. Geralt brings Jaskier to Kaer Morhen for the winter and Eskel mistakes their friendship for a romantic/sexual relationship and gets sad/distant/cold and starts to push Geralt away. (geraskier-trashh)."Geralt brings Jaskier to winter at Kaer Morhen and Eskel thinks he’s been replaced…
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 38
Kudos: 257





	The Riddle

Eskel knew the routine off by heart. Down to the second. Because the moment he took Geralt in his arms again after three seasons apart was the moment his heart started beating again; the moment that warmth returned to his soul and the tension of a year’s worth of hardship on the Path ebbed out of his body. For him, his family – as little and broken as it now was – was home. Lambert was already tucked up in his bed, exhausted but well-fed and warm. They wouldn’t see him for a day while he recuperated, and then the next three after that would be full of sullen silences and angry remarks. Once his heart’d thawed out, their lovable rogue would emerge and the season’s antics would ensue. 

Vesemir hadn’t spotted Geralt’s companion though. The second horse that followed in Roach’s wake had been at that time obscured by the trees. But Eskel saw him now, a smaller cloaked figure hunched low in his saddle, and when Eskel threw open the gates he was distracted only by the feel of Geralt’s body against his chest; his broad shoulders, his narrow waist, the familiar scent of arenaria and winter snows. “Wolf, you’re home.”

“Yeah,” Geralt rumbled into Eskel’s shoulder, squeezing him tightly, before stepping back to present his guest. “Eskel, this is Jaskier. The bard I’ve been telling you about.” 

Jaskier threw his hood back and Eskel was struck immediately by just how handsome the man was. High, aristocratic cheekbones, intelligent blue eyes and a truly dazzling smile that revealed lines of irritatingly straight teeth. The collar of his cloak slipped and exposed the exuberant colours of his doublet and Eskel found himself fighting the compulsion to pull his hood up. “And you must be Eskel,” Jaskier crooned, swinging down from his saddle. “An honour, I would say Geralt has told me so much about you, but alas it was not nearly enough to do justice to the real thing.”

“Uh,” Eskel opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut again. Words weren’t usually a problem for him; he was utilitarian and sparing with them, of course, but he was no half wit. Yet Jaskier’s mere presence seemed to have intimidated his tongue into the back of his head. “Vesemir, uh… has dinner ready. I’ll see to the horses.”

“Thanks,” Geralt slapped Eskel on the back of the shoulder and they butted heads lightly, as they always did, before he departed into the keep. His colourful troubadour skipped along in his wake, pausing only to grab his lute from the straps on the side of his gelding’s saddle.

Eskel tried not to think too hard while he tended to the horses. He tried not to compare his mutilated face to the dashing visage of Geralt’s guest in his mind’s eye, nor lament the poor impression he’d just made. Probably came across as a dullard. He cleaned and oiled the tack, brushed the horses down, and gave them a healthy helping of hay and oats before he headed into the keep. The process took so long that Jaskier and Geralt had already retired to bed.

Vesemir looked up from his book. “Pleasant chap, that Jaskier.” 

“Mm.” Eskel mumbled and pointedly ignored the raised eyebrow he received. “See you tomorrow morning.”

Eskel’s initial misgivings only intensified in the following week. The two had an easy camaraderie that Eskel had never seen Geralt share without anyone outside the school. Jaskier quipped and teased and quibbled at the White Wolf, but instead of snapping back, Geralt regarded his verbose companion with fondness. A subtle quirk of the lips upwards and a golden light in his eyes that Eskel had always believed to be kindled by the comforts of home and family. _And love._

It had been nearly a century, but Geralt and Eskel had never named what they had. Never explored the murky boundaries on the outskirts of their friendship. There had been a kiss when they were boys; a fumbling, short meeting of lips that ended in blushes and lots of throat clearing. They’d never really discussed it, but Geralt’s lingering touches, the softness in his face, the gentleness with which he embraced Eskel and slept at his side in front of the fire. Eskel had accepted that as a declaration of love. He’d never demanded anything more.

There’d been others that warmed Geralt’s bed. It happened on the Path. Loneliness was more dangerous to a Witcher than even the fiercest beast. But Eskel had always been assured that Geralt loved him. It was written between the lines of every conversation; entrenched in every moment they spent together. Ambient, loyal, unerring, patient love.

That is… Eskel had thought.

But as he watched Geralt with Jaskier, he realised he’d lost that. His acceptance of their platonic love had sent Geralt looking elsewhere. He’d found someone that brought a light to his life that Eskel never could. Eskel, a reminder of everything that’d happened, everything they were. Jaskier just… _Jaskier just wasn’t._ He was life, and light, and laughter. Eskel was painful memories, and duty, and… _not Jaskier._

Who was Eskel to deny Geralt something - _someone_ \- that made him so happy? He watched them together at dinner, listened to the bard’s tales and his songs about the White Wolf - his Witcher, he’d say - and nod along, smiling. Geralt’s huffs and eye rolls did little to cover the true depths of his affection, and the impatient ‘hush, bard’s and ‘it didn’t happen like that’s were no more than gesturing. Geralt… _loved this man._

So Eskel withdrew. He left them to their love and tried not to intrude. In the mornings he trained, and then in the afternoons he asked Vesemir for the chores in the deepest recesses of the keep. Mealtimes were the hardest, but Lambert distracted him with cards and eye-wateringly strong alcohol. Lambert - observant, sensitive to change - watched him with narrow-eyed concern.

One afternoon, Eskel was binding rope on the walls. The others were working behind the keep on some repairs, with the bard set to some sewing in the library. He was lost in his thoughts - hollow, dark - and almost missed the soft footfalls that approached from behind. Nostrils flaring, brow furrowed, he turned to look into a twin pair of blue eyes. “Jaskier,” his voice hoarse from lack of use, he cleared his throat, “did you need something?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Jaskier perched himself on a barrel, one leg crossed over the other. “I was hoping you could help me with a riddle.”

“A… riddle?”

“Yes,” the troubadour nodded, his expression grave. “I am usually quite adept at navigating matters of interpersonal relationships you understand, but this particular problem has me rather vexed.”

“I’ll… do my best,” Eskel murmured, looking back to the rope in his hands.

“I have two friends. Well, one is very dear to me, and one I hope will be so one day. The first I have known for many years. He has a kind, open heart, but he is sparing with his choice of keepers,” Jaskier watched Eskel closely.

“Smart.”

“Hmm, yes, I initially thought so too. Not one to fall to the folly of passing fancy. Nay, his heart is made for true, earnest love of the eternal kind,” Jaskier sighed. “And he is infatuated with this second friend. Talks about them on star-speckled nights, with the moon high and luminous, tells me all the tales of their time together with this… _look on his face._ The look of a man so devoutly in love that it fuels him when he is at his lowest ebb.”

Eskel’s mind flailed, his hands struggling with the simple twine of the rope fibres. “And the second friend?”

“This is where it becomes confusing,” Jaskier lifted a hand as if to stay a vocal audience. “You see, I anticipated their first meeting after so long with bated breath. I hoped to see the culmination of years worth of narrative; a passionate kiss, a desperate embrace. Two halves of one soul joining, and yet I have observed none of that, Eskel. Only a deep sadness where there should be overwhelming joy. My question is… why?”

“Do you think me a simple man, Jaskier?” Eskel spat, throwing the rope to the floor. “Why are you asking me this? You… you know, why… that Geralt is…”

“So deeply in love with you that I’m watching him pine for you from the other side of a dinner table,” Jaskier murmured. “Is his love unrequited?”

For the first time in decades, Eskel felt tears well in the corners of his eyes. “But, you and he, he… the way he looks at you…”

“Geralt and I are _friends,_ dear heart,” Jaskier tilted his head, fingers rubbing through the bristles of the goatee on his jaw. “Companions of the fondest kind. What we share is a brotherly love that surpasses that of even blood siblings. Yet that is all it is.” 

“I…” Eskel felt the knot in his throat tighten.

“Eskel, as much as I cannot deny Geralt’s very pleasant visage, and then there’s the matter of his _godly_ endowment, and - yes, well - I have seen the man shit in the woods after imbibing too many potions, and there are some things that one simply cannot _unsee_ \- I - ,” Jaskier cut off as Eskel rushed past him, and then smiled. _Ahh yes, Witchers; men of action._

Eskel sprinted through the keep and burst out of the kitchen into the small courtyard where Lambert and Geralt were stuffing training dummies. The latter looked up with surprise when the door rebounded off aging flagstones, and then yelped when Eskel’s big hands scooped him from the floor. Eskel crowded Geralt to the wall, lifting his legs to his waist as their mouths smashed together. The kiss - their first kiss in nearly a century - was not tender, nor skilled, but it was passionate. Tongues and lips moving in a desperate search for reciprocation. Geralt’s fingers slid through Eskel’s hair, squeezing the soft strands at the base of his neck, thighs tightening over his hips, and hummed in contentment. The vibrations coalesced in Eskel’s heart until it felt like it was beating inside Geralt’s chest instead, and Eskel pulled away reluctantly.

Their foreheads leaned together, Geralt still jammed against the wall with Eskel’s broad palms supporting him. They shared the same tentative breaths, rich amber searching honey gold and finding a heady mix of joy, relief and… love. With so little experience with friendship, with love, they’d struggled to navigate the maze of their feelings; complex, deep, eternal. What was friendship? What was it when you felt… more? How did they feel? How _should_ they feel? When the world harboured only hatred for you, it was impossible to understand the nuances of _love_. How to display it, how to ask for it, how to… _have_ it.

But now, with Geralt in his arms, Eskel felt whole. And he could see that very same feeling reflected back at him from eyes that shone with the warmth of the sun.

Lambert set the axe in his hands over his shoulder and threw his other hand up in exasperation. “Fucking _finally,_ ” he glanced across at Vesemir. “At this rate, they might actually shag in the next two hundred years - ow, _fuck._ ”

Eskel and Geralt heard the dull thud of Vesemir’s palm connecting with the back of Lambert’s head, and they both huffed a breathless laugh.

_Hmm. Well, why wait two hundred years?_


End file.
